Oftentimes hydrocarbon gases and helium are found in subterranean reservoirs with large quantities of carbon dioxide. The hydrocarbon fluids and carbon dioxide are produced simultaneously from the subterranean reservoirs to the surface of the earth. The carbon dioxide is vented to the atmosphere and the hydrocarbons and or helium are commercialized. Examples of such reservoirs are offshore Indonesia and Western Wyoming. When many combustion and industrial processes occur within the earth's atmosphere a hydrocarbon fuel combines with oxygen from the atmosphere to form combustion gases. A typical combustion process using the earth's atmosphere produces exhaust gases one of which is carbon dioxide. An example of industrial process that produce carbon oxides are the process of forming ammonia from methane using the classical water gas shift, and the generation of hydrogen from methane in the same water shift method. There is a large body of science that has shown that carbon dioxide is detrimental to the earth's climate, and that capture and sequestering of CO2 gases from the earth's atmosphere is a useful pursuit. What is needed is an industrial means to allow hydrogen, hydrocarbons, and ammonia to be processed at industrial and well sites where the carbon oxides are converted into non-gaseous forms.
Furthermore, many CO2 gas sequestering methods have been proposed which attempt to re-inject and contain gases of oxides of carbon in subterranean environments. It is clear from thermodynamics that the work required to move, and or compress molecules of carbon dioxide as a gas is significantly greater than moving CO2 molecules when they are in liquid or solid form. It is an objective of this invention to convert carbon gases into liquids and solids to reduce the cost of storage and sequestering these gases from the earths atmosphere.
Moreover, the storage or so called sequestering of CO2 as a gas requires vast reservoirs of subterranean earth to be used as a sequestering domain for CO2 gases. These vast reservoirs must be drilled in the earth to open up subterranean environments or reservoirs as those familiar to the mining and oil and gas well construction industry are aware such domains may eventually leak or pollute fresh water reservoirs or eventually leak once again into the atmosphere.
What is needed are methods and apparatus to sequester carbon gases gas into solids and liquids in a massive continual process on the surface of the earth. The present invention also includes a process and apparatus to convert gaseous carbon gases to carbon for easy sequestration and to prevent gaseous carbon from being released into the atmosphere, thereby avoiding environmental problems.